So what I hear is that this is what Jesus is to you.

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There's a lot to interpret about religion. But we agree that Jesus was white, good-looking, and totally ripped.

Fair enough. I'm not really trying to challenge anybody, but everybody needs to see that there is nothing inherent in religion which is "bad" for people. I think back to when I was an atheist, and I compare it to what I experience now. When I go out, I have the overwhelming feeling that people are against me, loud noises make me think someone is enraged by my presence, and it's a surreal kind of balance between those thoughts and "it's all in my head". I don't know if that makes sense, but that's how I felt when my family was mad (or as I learned later, saddened) that I didn't believe in God. I'm not trying to convince anyone that my beliefs are correct and theirs are wrong, I'm just trying to say, that despite my religion, I'm not a bad person. I don't want bamccaig or anyone to go through life thinking that religion == bad or religion == deceit. Damn, now this sounds preachy and I did not intend it to be.

Err... seriously? What you are describing there is mental illness.
Yes, really. It sounds like paranoid schizophrenia. No joke. I wish it was, but... yeah.

You're stereotyping here. Most Christians I know, including myself, don't feel they're any better than anyone else by virtue of religion.

And how does it effect the people around you? I see kindness, generosity, and caring coming out of the Christians I know. Sure, I see a few people who are bigoted and hateful, but looking at them I think they'd be that way no matter what, and just use religion as an excuse for it.

Bammy is just stereotyping based on his 2 asshole Christian friends.

That sounds like you met some pretty terrible people who label themselves as Christian. All I can say is that I'm sorry to hear that people are doing this sort of thing (whether they call themselves Christian or not).

But these people are being hypocritical. That much is obvious. Pretending to care won't fool God, and anyone who actually believes in and follows God would know this. I'm just glad the Christians I met weren't so hypocritical, or I might never have converted! We aren't all evil, deceptive pricks.

EDIT:

Me and my roommate (also Christian) both facepalmed when we heard about this. I'm sorry, stereotypically-bigoted homophobe, but God doesn't hate gays, or any other group of sinners (and why is it always the gays that are singled out? Why not the dudes who stare lustfully at women's cleavage?)

Not at all. I don't believe schizophrenia has any effect on attention span (though, some of the drugs to treat it may well do so). There have been some quite prolific writers who had schizophrenia. Edgar Allen Poe comes to mind.

edit:

The one thing that I can think off is that belief in a creator who put us here for a purpose can cause people to pass off some of the responsibility for their actions on their 'creator.' Though it's debatable if this is a problem with belief in a creator, or just weak minded people. As has already been said, many of the people who do bad things because of their religion would possibly have done them anyway if they hadn't been exposed to that religion.

You need to come to terms with the idea that "your experience" is necessary to make sense of some of the things you say. That's why no one understands the original post; the experiences of others are different. Kinda like in the PlayStation Move thread.

Nowhere did anyone play the "not like me" card (that I can see). There are some pretty clear standards and indicators laid out in the Bible. In much the same way as you might identify a particular Pokemon, if they don't fit the description, they aren't Christians. What they "feel" is irrelevant. What they "think" is irrelevant. Even the Bible says there are lots of people who will come to the shiny gates thinking they're going to get escorted right in for being so awesomely Christian, only to find out they weren't really anything. "But I should go to Heaven because I went to church every Sunday!" Yeah, life's a bitch, huh?

Neil Black said that I had met some "terrible people" that merely "labeled themselves" as Christians, as if to suggest that they aren't really Christians, unlike himself. Is that not the "not like me" card?

Saweeet, could you list those standards and indicators for me please?

I hate to be the one to break this to you^[1], but NOBODY meets the "standards and indicators" that Christians claim "regulate" who is and isn't a "real" Christian. There is no governing body or council that decides. Essentially, every individual decides whether or not somebody meets their definition of "Christian". In general, the answer is yes, assuming they convincingly claim to believe, at least until they're held accountable for their actions to another Christian, at which point they are suddenly exiled by said other Christian. Forgiveness? What?

There are no standards or indicators. The Bible is not a Christian handbook. Every church leader and indeed every Christian interprets for themselves what the Bible means. I really appreciated what Matthew Leverton said (albeit, he surely had no intention of supporting my argument) earlier about how Christians bend the Bible around their own personal beliefs instead of the other way around.

The Bible can't refer to Christianity specifically as Christianity came after. Additionally, most readers with half a brain would agree that it can't be taken literally as it itself contradicts itself. The best that you can do is interpret its meaning and apply that to what you believe. There is therefore no direct connection to God.

I suppose that it would depend on what type of "online match" that you are referring to. Counter-Strike or...?

I never have trusted the judgment of people with only half a brain.

I don't even know what your argument is... The thing that is ironic about your statements is that on one hand you want to say Christianity is useless and evil, but on the other hand you want to broaden it to include every Tom, Dick, and Harry who say they are Christians because they were sprinkled with some holy water fifty years ago.

So you dumb down the concept of Christianity to the bare minimum of simply calling oneself a Christian, and then you act like everybody who is a Christian is some weird nut. It's just another form of irrational generalizations. The broader you define a concept, the fewer valid generalizations you can make.

It would be no different than assuming all atheists are rude because one of them farted in your general direction, and therefore everything they believe is nonsense, and every action they take is evil and self-centered.

Anyway, when somebody says "but he isn't a real Christian," all they really mean is "he doesn't believe the same things I do." And while you can argue all day over what the definition of being Christian is, the essence of what they are saying is still true: it's not fair to lump them into the same group just because they share a common name.

You have decided that Christianity is evil, and therefore everything associated with it must be. That's no different from what religious fanatics do regarding atheists.

Wow, an Allegro.cc thread about religion!!!!

Come on people, everyone is entitled to believe what he wants to believe. It doesn't matter, as long as said person doesn't cause any harm either directly or indirectly.